Santa Úrsula

The 290-metre contour line on Tenerife’s north slope is not where most holiday brochures bother to stop. Keep climbing past the airport turn-off, however, and the TF-5 motorway spits you out above a chessboard of banana plots, avocado terraces and houses that still close for siesta. This is Santa Úrsula, a workaday town of 15,000 that functions as the island’s balcony: on clear mornings you can clock the entire coastline from Punta del Hidalgo to Los Gigantes without leaving the church square.

That square, Plaza de la Iglesia, is the easiest place to start. The sixteenth-century church arrived before the balconies, and its volcanic-stone tower is still the tallest thing around. Step inside and the air smells of candle wax and old pine; step outside again and the smell switches to diesel and grilling chicken – the Thursday market setting up along Calle Obispo Pérez Cáceres. Stallholders shout prices in Spanish, though a polite “buenos días” is enough to get three mangoes for a euro and directions to the nearest coffee. Most shoppers are neighbours, not visitors, which means the fruit is ripe and the carrier bags are free.

Santa Úrsula never planned to be a resort. It sits too far uphill for a beach towel shuffle and, unlike nearby Puerto de la Cruz, it closed its harbour centuries ago when the coastline silted up. What remains is a residential wedge between the Atlantic and the pine belt: houses strung along ridges, roads that dip into barrancos, and miradores positioned for people who like to look at the sea rather than swim in it. The two natural coves below town – Santa Ana and Charco del Negro – are pocket-sized, lava-scraped and reachable only by footpaths that would make a Health-and-Safety officer weep. For sand you drive ten minutes west to Playa Bollullo, a black-volcanic scoop watched over by a beach bar that sells beer in paper cups and charges three euros for a sun-lounger.

Walkers tend to be happier staying inland. The Barranco de Ruiz starts just north of the church and drops through evergreen laurel and fayal-brezal until it meets the coast road. The path is signed but rough: after rain the basalt turns slick as soap and the wooden handrails end abruptly where the budget ran out. Allow two hours there-and-back, plus another twenty minutes if you stop to identify the drone of a Tenerife blue chaffinch. Locals treat the gorge as a free gym; you will meet elderly couples in proper boots overtaking you on the uphill bit while discussing tomorrow’s weather.

Back in town, the historic core is small enough to cover between breakfast and coffee. Look for houses with tea-wood balconies painted the colour of pistachio ice-cream, and stone doorways carved with the original owner’s initials. Nothing is staged for selfies; the washing hung overhead is real, and so is the dog that follows you for a block then loses interest. If you need a sit-down, the Bodegón Arte on Calle San Agustín pours Listán Negro by the glass for €2.50 and will let you taste two more before you commit to a bottle. The menu is chalked on a board, but the staff will translate if you ask before, not after, your food arrives.

Eating options cluster along the main street and obey the Canarian rule of never straying far from potatoes. El Calderito de la Abuela does a lamb stew thick enough to stand a spoon in and brings mojo sauces colour-coded for heat level: green (safe), red (proceed with caution), and “casera” (sign a waiver). Portions are large; order one dish between two unless you are cycling home uphill. La Bodeguita de Enfrente opposite offers tapas-sized plates so you can try grilled octopus and local cheese without waddling out. Both places close on random Tuesdays – another reason to ask rather than assume.

Santa Úrsula’s calendar is built around crops, not cruise ships. January brings the Fiestas del Almendro en Flor when almond blossom turns the lower terraces baby-pink and the town lays on guided walks through private groves. May means the Romería de San Isidro: tractors polished to a mirror finish, carts loaded with sweet potatoes, and a procession that shuffles downhill to the harbour that no longer exists. October is the main event, ten days of fireworks and folklore for the patron saint. British visitors on Saga holidays often time their stay to coincide with the romería because it starts late enough for a lie-in and finishes early enough for a gin-and-tonic on the hotel terrace.

Practicalities first: you will need wheels. TITSA buses 107 and 108 link the town with Puerto de la Cruz every thirty minutes on weekdays, but the last one back leaves at 21:30 and Sunday service is patchy. A hire car from Tenerife South airport takes forty-five minutes via the motorway; pre-book because the walk-up queue at 7 p.m. moves at Canarian speed. Parking in the centre is free but tight – if you value your wing mirrors, use the dirt lot behind the football pitch and walk five minutes. Accommodation is mostly small rural houses or the eighteen-room Hotel Rural Victoria, an adults-only spot with gardens that drop down the cliff and rates from €110 B&B in winter. The hotel minibus will run you to Puerto’s restaurants for eight euros each way if you fancy an evening buzz.

Weather behaves like a British spring most of the year: 19 °C in January, 24 °C in August. The difference is the wind – the north-east trade can whip the mist over the lip of the valley at breakfast and burn it off by coffee, so pack a fleece even if the BBC app promises sun. Rain arrives suddenly and leaves just as fast; the gutters turn into torrents for twenty minutes then everything smells of warm tarmac and eucalyptus.

Even with a car, Santa Úrsula is a base rather than a checklist. Ten minutes downhill delivers you to La Orotava’s seventeenth-century centre; fifteen minutes uphill puts you among pine forests at 1,200 metres where the air is cool enough for a proper hike. Puerto de la Cruz and its Loro Parque circus are close enough for grandchildren, far enough that you don’t hear the sea-lions at night. What you do hear is the clack of dominoes from bar tables and the evening news drifting through open windows – the soundtrack of a town that has refused to turn itself into a theme park.

Come if you want Tenerife minus the wristband culture, but don’t expect convenience-store tourism. Evenings are quiet, the nearest nightclub is a twenty-euro taxi away, and if you forget to buy milk on Saturday the supermarket won’t open again until Monday. Treat Santa Úrsula as somewhere to slow the pace, fill the lungs and remember what the island smelled like before the brochures arrived.